Le Zhou

Latent brain subtypes of chronotype reveal unique behavioral and health profiles across population cohorts

Julie Carrier

Kai-Florian Storch

Robin I. M. Dunbar

Chronotype is shaped by the complex interplay of endogenous and exogenous factors. This time-enduring trait ties into societal behaviors an… (see more)d is linked to psychiatric and metabolic conditions. Despite its multifaceted nature, prior research has treated chronotype as a monolithic trait across the population, risking overlooking substantial heterogeneity in neural and behavioral fingerprints. To uncover hidden subgroups, we develop a supervised pattern-learning framework integrating three complementary brain-imaging modalities with deep behavioral and health profiling from 27,030 UK Biobank participants. We identify five distinct, biologically valid chronotype subtypes. Each demonstrates unique patterns across brain, behavioral and health profiles. External validation in 10,550 US children from the ABCD Study cohort reveals reversed age distributions and replicates sex-associated brain-behavioral patterns, suggesting that potential divergences between chronotype traits observed throughout adulthood may begin to emerge early in life. These findings highlight underappreciated sources of population variation that echo the rhythm of people’s inner clock.

2025-12-21

Nature Communications (published)

doi.org

Latent brain subtypes of chronotype reveal unique behavioral and health profiles across population cohorts

Julie Carrier

Kai-Florian Storch

Robin I. M. Dunbar

Danilo Bzdok

Chronotype is shaped by the complex interplay of endogenous and exogenous factors. This time-enduring trait ties into societal behaviors an… (see more)d is linked to psychiatric and metabolic conditions. Despite its multifaceted nature, prior research has treated chronotype as a monolithic trait across the population, risking overlooking substantial heterogeneity in neural and behavioral fingerprints. To uncover hidden subgroups, we develop a supervised pattern-learning framework integrating three complementary brain-imaging modalities with deep behavioral and health profiling from 27,030 UK Biobank participants. We identify five distinct, biologically valid chronotype subtypes. Each demonstrates unique patterns across brain, behavioral and health profiles. External validation in 10,550 US children from the ABCD Study cohort reveals reversed age distributions and replicates sex-associated brain-behavioral patterns, suggesting that potential divergences between chronotype traits observed throughout adulthood may begin to emerge early in life. These findings highlight underappreciated sources of population variation that echo the rhythm of people’s inner clock.

2025-12-21

Nature Communications (published)

doi.org

Latent brain subtypes of chronotype reveal unique behavioral and health profiles: an across-cohort validation

Julie Carrier

Kai-Florian Storch

Robin Dunbar

Danilo Bzdok

Chronotype is shaped by the complex interplay of endogenous and exogenous factors. This trait ties into various behaviors in the wider socie… (see more)ty and is linked to the prevalence of psychiatric and metabolic conditions. Despite its multifaceted nature, prior research has treated chronotype as a monolithic trait across the population, risking overlooking substantial heterogeneity in neural and behavioral fingerprints of both early risers and night owls. To test for such hidden subgroups, we developed a supervised pattern-learning framework for trait subtyping, integrating three complementary brain-imaging modalities with deep behavior, diagnosis, and drug prescription profiling from 27,030 UK Biobank participants. We identified and characterized five distinct biologically valid chronotype subtypes: (1) typical eveningness, (2) depression-associated eveningness, (3) typical morningness, (4) morningness with greater expression in females, and (5) eveningness with greater expression in males. Each uncovered subtype showed unique patterns across brain, behavioral and health profiles. We finally externally validated these subtypes in 10,550 US children from the ABCD Study® cohort, which revealed reversed age distributions and replicated sex-associated brain-behavioral patterns, underscoring the fact that potential divergences between chronotype traits observed throughout adulthood may begin to emerge early in life. These findings highlight underappreciated sources of population variation that echo the rhythm of people’s inner clock.

2025-07-28

Research Square (preprint)

doi.org

Multimodal population study reveals the neurobiological underpinnings of chronotype

Le Zhou

Karin Saltoun

Julie Carrier

Kai-Florian Storch

Robin I. M. Dunbar

Danilo Bzdok

2025-04-16

Nature Human Behaviour (unknown)